The Chevy Volt, as discussed over at TreeHugger, is being marketed as great for the environment. Is it really? Not so much.

For electric cars, watt hour per mile is the determinant of efficiency. The Tesla takes 180 watt hours per mile. The Volt takes 250 (better than the original 400 they had originally stated). Depending on where you live in America, that could be up to 0.5 lbs of CO2 per mile. Compare that to the Prius, which comes in at only 0.4 lbs per mile.

Of course, this is still better than the 0.7 lbs per mile the average American sedan produces.

A short bio

I am a consultant with the World Bank in DC and a recent PhD graduate of economics at the University of California, Irvine. My research is on conflict and post-conflict development, and the economic impact of the environment and environmental change. I am currently working on a randomized impact evaluation for the World Bank in the post-conflict area of northern Uganda.

My two favorite quotes

>> If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

>> One of Einstein's colleagues asked him for his telephone number one day. Einstein reached for a telephone directory and looked it up. "You don't remember your own number?" the man asked, startled.

"No," Einstein answered. "Why should I memorize something I can so easily get from a book?"